PC reboots randomly while playing games.

Ahtari

Lately me PC has started to reboot itself at random times while playing games (mostly WoW). Sometimes it restarts right on loadup, sometimes 5 minutes in, sometimes hours later, sometimes not at all.

Any ideas on what this could be?

Any help would be appreciatied.

Vindicta_

When you say it restarts on loadup, do you mean that the computer has been off for a while and you're just starting it up cold?

Ahtari

loadup of the game.

I thas never restarted when I was not in a game.

Vindicta_

It sounds like your computer may be overheating. If you haven't already open up your case and try to clean out any dust that's accumulated and check to make sure that all the fans are working.

Ahtari

All are working, I have opened the case and cleaned it. Also I got some program that is monitoring my temps and they stay cooler then or at the average.

Also I played all during the summer and was fine, it is much cooler now in my room.

Magus`

If it's not an overheating issue and HOPEFULLY not a hardware issue, there is a chance that some software somewhere is screwing up.

Turn off 'auto restart' (I forget where this is, I'm sure you can find it) and find out what the BSOD tells you.

That's a start.

Kewop Decam

check for dust on the fans. Also check if the fans are working correctly.


The problem is overheating. There's no doubt in my mind.

Magus`

Kewop Decam wrote:

check for dust on the fans. Also check if the fans are working correctly.


The problem is overheating. There's no doubt in my mind.

He says it's crashing as the game starts up. I have yet to see a CPU go from operating temperatures to crash-level ones in the span of 5 seconds.

TyrantCow

Kewop Decam wrote:

check for dust on the fans. Also check if the fans are working correctly.


The problem is overheating. There's no doubt in my mind.

Agreed. I've killed 2 video cards and a motherboard with those exact symptoms. You've got a heat issue.

Make sure that heatsink on your video card is clear of compressed dust.

planters

Overheating, I got the same problem with CS, and I gotta put a fan next to my laptop

DynamiteKid

I had this problem with my graphics card overheating. My computer would just die. Get a man in.

Ahtari

I would think its overheating also but it doesnt make sense how the comp could be left on for days doing non gaming things, then get so hot it restarts withing 5 seconds of launch.

Also how could I be able to sometimes play for hours the same way?

Either way I will try and clean it extra good (even though I just cleaned it) and maybe find some way to make it get some obscene low temperatures just to set my mind at ease.

robaal

Check the voltages also - most important would be the +12V and +5V and all voltages should be within 5% of the target value.

Also: if your card requires an external power connector then you shouldn't have any other devices connected to the same cable.

shadowane

Does Firefox crash at all on you?

Muriden

Also go through the standard, uninstall/update drivers just to be safe.

Janin

Try running Prime95 in torture test mode - that will rule out out problems with your CPU and memory. Next step would be to run a game that causes crashes in windowed mode, and monitor the temprature of your video card. If it doesn't get too hot, but still crashes, it's a software problem.

kaliyama

Heating is probably the cause of what's going on (check the CPU fan, not just the case fans?)

But it also could be a power usage/voltage thing. Did you upgrade recently? If you have one handy you could try swapping the power supplies to see if the problem goes away.

nexuscrawler

I'd also run memtest86 just to be sureit's not bad RAM.

overheating seems unlikely since it's right when you launch but when you start a big game it immedaitely grabs a hgue chunk of RAM. If it hits a bad sector it could trigger a reboot.

Elessar Elfstone

Sounds like the heating issues I recently had, although mine were with my GPU so I got artefacting instead of CTDs

DynamiteKid

Ahtari wrote:

I would think its overheating also but it doesnt make sense how the comp could be left on for days doing non gaming things, then get so hot it restarts withing 5 seconds of launch.

Also how could I be able to sometimes play for hours the same way?

I don't know. But that's exactly what my PC was like. There was no set time it would die. But I could run anything else for hours and hours, as soon as something like CS:Source started up, the screen died and the PC died.